Basic Concepts

The Stamp exercises, perhaps more than other brass methods, emphasize musical principles as much as physical concepts to accomplish the desired technical results. Perhaps the most famous Stamp aphorism was that if it sounded correct (i.e. «in-tune») then one was doing it correctly. Or, conversely, if one did not play correctly it would not sound correct. Indeed, everything that has been said or written about Mr. Stamp and his teaching/playing concepts reinforces this basic idea.

To implement his concepts, James Stamp would play the Warm-Ups/ Exercises on the piano keyboard while the students would simultaneously play them on the mouthpiece or the instrument. This method imposed a certain discipline and minimized the need for an inordinate amount of verbal instructions and analyses since any problems would become known almost immediately and consequently could be addressed early in the training process...

The accompaniments (free MP3 to download)

Original music by Thomas Stevens, Adapted for electronic sounds and recorded by Tom Dambly, available separately as MP3 Download.